Watchguard Video Systems Updated Oct 25, 2009

Any opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.

I do wish in this update to give my condolences to the California Highway Patrol. According to a news release from Watchguard the CHP put in an order for 2000 of these units. For the technicians in CHP please read the below. And for the managers and purchasers at CHP do not accept partial shipments and insist on an extended warranty. You are going to need it!

I am one of the many radio/video techs for Texas DPS. We are deploying the new Watchguard Direct to DVD video systems in all new DPS vehicles. Or we had planned that anyway, we ordered 290 units a while back and Watchguard could not deliver in a timely fashion so old VHS video systems are again being reissued. OK, I do admit we are a large state agency and we have a large fleet of cars for a large state.

First let me say it is policy for any Texas DPS Highway Patrol vehicle to record all traffic stops and any interviews. If the video system is not working the car is out of service. In the end it has saved more time in litigation then any single piece of equipment on the vehicle. That is the degree of importance we assign to the video equipment.

Next let me say that we are a state agency and we will use equipment past the point of obsolescence. A vehicle comes in for replacement and all the electronics is pulled out and reissued to another vehicle. The equipment I maintain in the older vehicles is getting to the point that the manufacturer no longer stocks parts. I frequently try to make one working unit out of two or three bad ones. But then again for any police or public service agency this is situation normal. I welcomed the new Watchguard unit originally as something new and state of the art.

We got the Watchguard units about three years ago. The price tag originally was good at the state rate of $4500 per unit, and it was made in Texas, another point in its favor. At that point Watchguard admitted that the equipment was not ready for prime time and they really needed another year. A year later and system software now at release 4.5 or higher and it is behaving. They have gone from a DV-1 to a DV-1B and Watchguard has now released the DV-1C.  With the DC1-C the connector schemes changed so you cant replace a 1A or 1B with a 1C without a complete install or rewire from the car power supply back.

They did not make any effort to maintain backwards compatibility the sure sign of an inexperienced or very arrogant manufacturer. They do not provide any kind of adapter cable to let a car wired for a DV1-B be retrofitted with a DV1-C

Do not believe the hype on the website and instead talk to some one who has had to maintain it. For those if you who are considering buying this device, I have two words for you.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

If you do buy this, whatever you do insist on and buy an extended warranty. At this point we are having a 30% failure rate right out of the box and then infant mortality in the first month of service is running very high. Lots of problems with audio connectors and hard drive issues and hydraulic shock mounts breaking seals and dripping oil. Oil on recordable DVD media is a bad thing. They also had a bad lot of power connectors delivered from their subcontractor that was causing the device to blow car fuses. This problem was resolved by going to a new proprietary connector on the 1C.

This is running the failure rate up. Bottom line, if you are buying ten units for you fleet, you had better have spares in reserve. Do not assume you wont need spare inventory as the warranty is intact. Do not assume that the device will work through the warranty period. A round trip for a warranty issue to Watchguard is running about 45 day.  Many times we run a unit to Watchguard and they only give lip service to any problem blaming anything but their equipment. The most frequent excuse now is to blame your recordable media. I have several very annoyed Troopers who went through this during a trip to Watchguard to have the device serviced. They ended up coming to me and I changed the unit after a brief examination.

Until Watchguard improves its mechanical mounting, don’t buy this device. It looks like the mechanical design was done by a mechanical engineering Co-op student doing summer intern work.  The mounting plate is held to the roof and then four screws hold the Watchguard to the mounting plate. All the screws are in the wrong place and hard to take out and replacement is a two person job. Add to that the mounting of the wireless mike they have now and it's completely detach two pieces of sheet of metal from the old unit and put them on the new. Unless you have a full time maintenance staff you don’t mind keeping busy, don’t consider this unit.

They had the chance here to do something wonderful and they copied mistakes from several older designs. The fact is with the high failure rate these things should change out as easy as slapping a new clip in a firearm. Rather you have to manipulate lots of screws and move sheet metal around have two people to do a change out in a crowded police cruiser.

Want to have fun with this, get two of them installed as a test in two different cruisers and then have them move the units from one car to the other. Watch the techs and the manipulations they have to do, and don't get distracted by the salesman yammering at you. He will be talking trying to do a bit of slight of hand and diversion.

One final word of advice, get any promise in writing! Then run it by your lawyer. Since we were their first and largest customer, Watchguard originally promised that our warranty would be "Forever" That lasted about a year and they reneged on the promise and fell back to the letter of the warranty contract.

The Watchguard is very voltage sensitive. If the car voltage or the Intelligent UPS is low the device may not boot up at all. Hanging up on the startup screen or be very slow in starting up are sure signs of a voltage sensitivity issue. Taking three attempts to bring the device up is not that unusual in a car with a marginal battery.

Another things you are going to need spare parts on is the Intelligent UPS (A back up battery) mounted in the car to hold up the unit while starting the car. They do not provide schematics or repair information on the device. If I do get around to reverse engineering this device I will post information on it as I develop it. As busy as I am this could take awhile. The next item is the wireless mike or body bug for the officer. They have gone through three vendors/revisions of the device and I currently can't replace the battery in the body bug. My only option at this point is to replace the whole docking station and wireless mike with a new one. This has to do with my supply chain issues but be aware you will need spares.

OK rant complete. Watchguard has done one thing for which I will be forever grateful.

We had an officer-involved shooting/fatality on a routine traffic stop. A Watchguard representative was helo'd to the site and he was the one who recovered the video from the hard drive with bullet holes in the windshield and blood on the seat. Thank You! For info the suspect took his own life rather than be caught by the Texas Rangers and others officers who were moving in. I was involved in the manhunt in my own way as I reprogrammed lots of radios for the Rangers so they would have local communications.

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